MOBILE units to help bring coronavirus jabs to residents who would find it difficult to attend vaccination centres in person may be used, a meeting of the St Helens Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) heard.

Mark Palethorpe, executive director of integrated health and care at St Helens Council and accountable officer for the CCG, gave an update on the borough's vaccination programme.

The CCG runs the GP-led vaccination clinics taking place in St Helens offering Covid jabs.

The borough also hosts a separate regional mass vaccination centre at Saints' Totally Wicked Stadium.

St Helens' vaccine rollout has won national praise from government Ministers and the borough has the highest take-up rate for jabs in the city region.

NHS figures released last week showed that 99,295 people had received a Covid vaccine in St Helens, 55 per cent of the population.

Mr Palethorpe said: "We know we have done really well across the borough and I would pay tribute to our clinical and non-clinical staff. People have moved everything to make this happen, it is not something could have happened without.

"It is really successful in respect of vaccination of our population, with 95 per cent of over 70s and 90 per cent of over 60s.

"We continue with our work on second doses, that is working really well at the moment."

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It has been reported that vaccination centres in the country were warned by NHS England that there would be a reduction in weekly supplies of vaccines in April “as a result of reductions in national inbound vaccines supply.”

Mr Palethorpe acknowledged that availability of vaccines will be affected somewhat in "the next few weeks" but said the rollout in St Helens has focused on administering second doses and said "we continue in terms of our rollout of second doses".

He added St Helens is looking at a more targeted approach to reach people and is considering a mobile unit to aid the vaccination programme and COVID-19 testing in the community.

Mr Palethorpe said: "We are exploring the possibility of a mobile unit that can get out and about and reach some of our communities that find it difficult to come to us.

"We will get to them in terms of testing and vaccination."

St Helens vaccination programme has been widely praised

St Helens' vaccination programme has been widely praised

It was confirmed that under 30s in St Helens would receive an alternative vaccine to the AstraZeneca jab, in line with a UK-wide recommendation after an investigation had taken place into the AstraZeneca vaccine and potential links with blood clots.

However, Dr June Raine, head of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, had told a press conference the review "reinforced that the risk of this rare suspected side effect remains extremely small”.

Mr Palethorpe echoed England's deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van Tam's recent comments that the vaccination programme has been "a most enormous success" but there is now the need for a "course correction".

He said: "We heard from Jonathan Van Tam around course correction with the vaccinations and referencing that the vaccination has been a massive success around the country, particularly for us in St Helens."

Mr Palethorpe added they were working with groups it has been reported there has been a lower take-up of vaccines, including care home staff and ethnic minorities but said this affected only a "low number" of people in St Helens.

Mr Palethorpe added: "The low infections and high vaccination rates is helping us locally in St Helens.

"We've seen some of the highest rates among over 60s and therefore protection of our most vulnerable is happening."

He added the CCG would continue to "watch the data" as social mixing increases after the coronavirus lockdown exit roadmap was eased on Monday and reinforced the messages on social distancing, hand washing, wearing a face covering and vaccinations.

Lay chair of the St Helens CCG Geoffrey Appleton, who paid a visit to the vaccination centre at Saints recently, also praised the efforts of all the volunteers helping with the programme.

He said: "I would like to thank the volunteers, without the volunteers we wouldn't have been successful. They have played a pivotal role, we couldn't have managed without them, they have been absolutely brilliant."